


All Roads Lead to You

by Starlithorizon



Series: Making Home [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bad Spanish, Established Relationship, Family, Fluff, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlithorizon/pseuds/Starlithorizon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil plan a wedding, the family visits, and the scientist falls more and more in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Roads Lead to You

**Author's Note:**

> Yoooooo, I did the thing! The thing, as you can tell, is a continuation of "We Are Home." This is significantly shorter, but never fear: I have plans to stick to this 'verse for a little while. All I want is for these boys to be happy.

Lights pulsed and fluttered and trailed through the sky lazily, as though they had all the time in the world to illuminate everything. Perhaps they did. Who knew what sort of lifespan mysterious lights had? Before Night Vale, he never would have considered something like this, but now, he found himself questioning so many things that would not have made sense in what he now considered his old life.

Through the open window, the warm breath of night stole in and painted their skin as delicately as the lights did. This was hardly moonlight, though that did fall in silvery squares on the floor and over the bed. No, the lights, still mysterious and strange after all this time, played against their bodies in glimmers of reds and purples and teals, lighting them up like precious things under neon.

Fingers traced along the soft edges of light and shadow, playing across contours and limning bodies with love. There were quiet giggles filtering through the glowing darkness, surrounded by whispers of endearment and adoration. Eyes shone brightly, lips shone wetly, hearts shone with such absolute incandescence.

The seasons had changed and freezing dry winter gave way to warm green spring, which thus yielded to hot dry summer. The summer had come in with heat, oppressive and impressive, fierce and thick and cloying, and it had taken him two years to at least not hate it. The apartment was full of the sugary-cool smell of air conditioning, as well as the wet, woodsy smell of sage and scrub baking in the heat under the moon and mysterious lights.

Night Vale was still peculiar and different and strange, but it was beautiful and perfect, and it was home.

* * *

"I mean, it's _highly_ unusual, but I think we could get away with it," Cecil was saying, swirling his hands through the air as though conjuring illustrations. "You are, after all, our most wonderful and important outsider."

Carlos chuckled, swirling a curly fry through ketchup. "Am I still really an outsider? I've lived in Night Vale for two years now," he pointed out. There was a smile curling the corners of his lips upward. He was so in love, stupidly in love, and it was all for this ridiculous creature sitting across from him in Arby's. It filled up his heart, every atrium and chamber and cell, and in the simplest of ways. Some things didn't change in Night Vale, and love was one of them.

"Well, yes," Cecil said, tilting his head a bit in confusion. A brow arched just slightly, just the smallest bit, and it was the angle that spoke to just how much Carlos still didn't know. "All non-natives are outsiders, no matter how long they've lived here, It's not a bad thing, of course. Nor is it a good thing. It's just a descriptor. Nothing more, nothing less. And as that descriptor fits you, I think it means that we're allowed a little leeway. After all, you're not really one for sacrificial bloodletting."

Carlos was filled with memories of a recent ceremony Cecil had undertaken, something like a minor exorcism, he thought. Or maybe it was a ritual to ensure Carlos's hair grew back quickly after a haircut. He couldn't even be sure anymore, there was so much pomp and pageantry to this town, and while it was kind of beautiful in all its calculated certainty, it did all blend together a bit.

"That's true," the scientist conceded, grinning now.

Their wedding was just a few short weeks away, and though it wasn't going to be a huge affair, it _was_ going to be a big deal. This was, of course, the first wedding for each of them, and they were damn sure it was going to be their last. More than that, it was the wedding of one of Night Vale's biggest celebrities and their collective favorite outsider. It was rumored that Marcus Vansten himself would be in attendance. And, of course, most of Carlos's family would be there, and there was no way in hell his mother would allow their wedding to be anything less than magnificent. He remembered the elaborate cathedral affairs of both his sisters' weddings, the poufy dresses and the bridesmaids and groomsmen—it was too much in Carlos's opinion.

They had spent a great deal of time talking about it, trying to hash out details, and though Cecil refused to reveal details about his wedding garb of choice (Carlos desperately hoped there wouldn't be too many buttons), they were pretty in concert with most of the plans. That was a tremendous blessing, he had to admit, and that made it so much easier to say no when his mother or sisters tried to talk him into things like lilies or tasteful color schemes. While Cecil certainly had a flair for the dramatic, he was more than willing to compromise a bit to accommodate Carlos's simpler tastes.

"Although, there _are_ some important rituals that we have to include," Cecil warned, though it was hard to think of it as a warning with that grin lighting up his face like dawn. Though the sun might not always rise, it always shone through extraordinary Cecil.

"As long as we don't have to let any blood in front of my family, I'm more than happy, Cecil," he said, catching one of Cecil's swirling hands and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "I don't care what rituals we have to go through as long as I get to marry you."

Cecil blushed, heady and purple and sweet.

Carlos grinned, and the lights above the Arby's spun a little faster.

* * *

"So how long is the drive, Carlitos?" his mother asked over the phone a few days later. He and Cecil were in the living room, the movie paused just as Jay was learning that his old teacher was from Jupiter. Her face was contorted on the screen in a picture of fury, and Cecil kept giggling every time he caught sight of it.

"It kind of depends, _mamá_. There's not much logic to it. It took me two days the first time I drove here, and six hours when Cecil and I came back after Christmas. Night Vale is weird."

Magdalena sighed on the other end of the line, likely kicking up little eddies of wind in Inglewood as she did.

"If it takes more than eight hours, I'll tell your father to call you just so he doesn't have to complain at me, _mijo_ ," she said, and there was a lilting edge to her words, but he knew that she meant it. He could just imagine his father, voice booming through the desert as he hurled Spanish at Carlos through the phone, tangling demands to fix this together with congratulations and complaints about missing his shows.

"You're always thinking ahead," the scientist sighed, praying to defunct gods that theirs would be a quick journey.

"Of course, I'm a mom. I'll see you in a couple weeks, _mijo_. Give Cecil my love."

"I will. Love you, Mom."

"Love you too. Bye!"

Cecil turned to stare at Carlos, questions written all across his face.

"Mom sends her love," Carlos said quickly before Cecil could let his myriad questions fall from his tongue in quick succession.

"That's very kind of her," Cecil remarked. "And I can talk to City Council about making their trip a bit shorter. They are rather fond of me."

That much was both alarming and obvious. Equally nerve-wracking was the weary knowledge that _of course_ City Council was responsible for travel time. Really, why bother with being surprised?

"That would be nice, Cecil," he found himself saying a moment later, tired beyond belief. It was a nice kind of tiredness, though, the sort of languor that seeped into muscles after lying in the sun for a while. He tucked himself closer into his fiancé's curled body.

Cecil pressed a kiss to Carlos's hair.

"It'll be my pleasure."

After persuading the remote to do his bidding again by stroking its sides and cooing at it, Cecil pressed play and the movie swung back into motion. Cecil's heart best warmly beneath Carlos's ear, and it was so lovely that they belonged to each other.

* * *

Carlos always groaned and bit back a grin when he caught Cecil on the phone with his mother. He knew the two of them were making plans for the wedding, and he was sure they would be elaborate and perhaps a little ridiculous. While Carlos sort of wanted his wedding to be perfect, he knew Cecil wanted the same thing.

Really, though, all it took for a perfect wedding was getting married to Cecil. That was it. Whether there were soft-meat crowns, whether there was an open bar at the reception, whether there were dozens of buttons, all that mattered in the end was getting to marry the love of his life.

When Cecil would chatter with Magdalena, or even Ana or Maria, he'd sometimes catch Carlos's eye and flash a besotted little grin. They'd both blush like preteens in the first flush of interest, rather than men in their thirties in a very committed relationship.

The few scientists that remained in the lab with him had teased him all through their courtship, and even well before. They'd crowed and crooned and cried Cecil's name with glee every time that honeyed voice seeped through the speakers, starting from the first time Cecil had mentioned Carlos. At first, he'd merely blushed and told everyone to keep working, adopting a gruffness which didn't suit him at all. But over time, the scientists began to go. Some packed up their things and left, snarling about this stupid town. Some did not get the chance to decide. After the fourth unexplained death, a wave of loss swept through the lab and a dozen more drove off while far too many became reckless and confrontational with the fatal nature of Night Vale.

They had started from a team of thirty, and now they were five.

Fondness had taken the place of professionalism, and the small group found themselves friends. Carlos wasn't the only one with what Larissa kept calling a native. Francine was dating a sweet young man with the prettiest green eyes Carlos had ever seen. Slowly, but surely, they were finding themselves as friends, and they were finding that Night Vale was home. Perhaps death was the trick to it: once you survived long enough, it would be stupid to leave.

And now that the leader of the group was getting married to the Voice of Night Vale, their teasing was both less and more than it had been before. They were definitely a little raunchier than before, but there was a whole lot more fondness as they all came to love Cecil. Though he had a real flair for the dramatic, and though he was sometimes far too Night-Valean for anyone's good, really, Cecil was incandescently wonderful. Really, who couldn't love Cecil?

* * *

"Am I invited to the wedding?" Steve Carlsberg laughed when he and Carlos had run into each other in the Ralph's one day. Even though they'd never properly met, Cecil's hatred for Steve ran very deep indeed. He absolutely _loathed_ the man's views of the government and City Council, and it all sort of spread to the rest Steve's, well, everything. Scones and hubcaps were perfectly fair game in Cecil's book.

"Well, if you'd like to go, you certainly could," Carlos said, shifting the basket to his other arm. He had just run in to pick up a few things for dinner, but no one ever really plans on running into anyone, let alone their fiancé's mortal enemy.

"Nah, I can get the play-by-play from just about everyone in town. Thanks, though."

"It's no problem. I'll see you around, Steve."

"Yeah, same here."

They parted ways, Steve heading to the frozen foods and Carlos heading to the (wheat-free) bread aisle, and he was struck with the fact that so many, many, _many_ people were invited to the wedding. Not that he minded, really, but still. It was almost alarming. A good portion of his family would be there, sure, but _such_ a large portion of the town would be there as well, and that was... Well, it was nice. Since Cecil didn't really have a family of his own, it was nice that he got the town. They were like a scraggly found family, with a few uncle figures with extra arms and grandmotherly figures with nonexistent angels in tow.

That was what Carlos was marrying into. He was going to be an implanted child of the town, and as much as they seemed to like him already, there was a permanence to it that he kind of loved. And Cecil was getting Carlos's family, who he loved, who loved him in return. The kids would call him uncle Cecil, or maybe even _tío_ , just like Carlos. _Tíos_ Cecil and Carlos.

He liked that.

He liked it a lot.

And his mother would call Cecil her baby, her boy, her sweet strange son-in-law, and he would bond with the other Mendoza husbands, and his sisters would tease Cecil and it was perfect and beautiful. They had found something wonderful, and they had given each other so much more than that.

He got and paid for their groceries and drove back to the warm little apartment he and Cecil shared, always eager to be home.

* * *

"Carlos!" his mother crooned once she and the others had arrived at the apartment. It was a little small for nearly a billion people, but everyone seemed happy enough. Besides, the more extended family wouldn't be in Night Vale till the next day, and Carlos was happy to have his parents and sisters and nieces and nephews around.They left the front door open so everyone could mill around the building's courtyard and wilt a bit in the intense heat. Still, it was better than cramming thirteen people into their living room, and anyway, it would be a lot nicer when the sun went down. Eventually. Carlos had long since stopped trying to predict or time the rising or setting of the sun.

"Oh, and Cecil! Oh, _mijo_ , it's good to see you too!"

She swept Cecil into a hug, and it only took a moment for him to return it. That seemed to be the cue for nearly everyone else to swarm the host and hug him, and while he was still a bit nervous around Carlos's family, he was comfortable enough knowing that it was his family as well.

"How are you all?" Carlos asked once everyone was settled. True to form, all of the adults began speaking at once, the kids' chatter from the courtyard drifting through the open door and backing the hum of mundanity. Carlos grinned and leaned a bit into the madness.

"Your mother has been telling all of her friends about the wedding," Carlos's dad said, all fondness and teasing. Magdalena snorted, playing right along and revealing that Henry had been talking about the wedding at the garage for months now. That was sweet, and predictable, and it made Cecil curl more tightly into Carlos's space. They were both grinning, and Carlos's sisters both wolf whistled when the men kissed.

"Oh, grow up!" Carlos laughed, and everyone was laughing and smiling and incandescent with love. He had missed everyone dearly, and it was obvious that everyone else had missed Carlos and Cecil.

When the sun dipped beneath the blocky horizon of the town, and then beneath the gentle swell of the outlying hills, the adults all filed out into the courtyard with plates and plates and plates of food. They all stood around and talked even more, and Cecil swept the kids up into a game that he had learned as a child that Carlos was fantastically bad at. True to form, the clever kids excelled, especially the twins.

Eventually, the family left for the hotel, promising to meet up at the Cactus Cafe for breakfast the next morning. They parted with hugs and kisses and sweet cries of "you boys, you boys!"

Cecil and Carlos stayed up late to do the dishes, and the excitement commingling with the domesticity hummed in Carlos's bones like neon.

* * *

Everyone was waiting. _Cecil_ was waiting. In only a matter of time, they would be formally married, according to the laws of Night Vale. He wasn't sure about the legal validity outside of the town, but within its confines, it was absolute. And soon, it would be theirs.

"Are you ready?" Magdalena asked, rubbing Carlos's arms, chafing warmth into them through the soft white tunic. The silver embroidery at the neck and cuffs shone exuberantly in the sunshine, almost as excited as he was. His heart was a kick drum.

"I think so," he said, and he immediately ran his fingers over the leather belt at his hips, feeling for the small silver sheath on one side. The ceremonial dagger was there, and safe, and polished by Josie's angels.

"Oh, baby. I am so proud of you," she said, placing one hand on either side of his face. She brought his head down and pressed a kiss to his brow, chuckling softly as she immediately rubbed the lipstick away with her sleeve. He made a face like a child and let out a gleefully petulant, " _Mamá_!" in response.

And then his father's arms were wound tightly round Carlos's shoulders, reeling him in for a hug. This whole day was love, and he was unbelievably lucky that it was all his for the having, and for the giving.

When the music started, a gleefully celebratory indie tune that reminded Carlos of the weather Cecil had played all week, everyone in the little room grinned.

"There's our cue," Henry said warmly, rubbing Carlos's shoulder. The scientist leaned a bit around the doorway, peering out and into the large, broad room housing most of his family and most of the town. He saw a few empty seats at the front, belonging to his parents, Old Woman Josie, and John Peters the farmer. Surprisingly, Steve Carlsberg was sitting near the middle, positively beaming. Perhaps Carlos had misjudged Cecil and Steve's relationship after all.

There were the twins, dressed up in their Sunday best, Julie's curls decorated lavishly with little wildflowers that weren't meant to bloom here. She tossed even more wildflowers around as she skipped down the aisle, with Rafi scattering iridescent feathers after her. Most of them were glowingly white, but a few were black and shining like an oil slick. Those probably came from the black angel.

The song spun on with such joy, and now, it was time. The aisle was in three parts, with one central row and two forks joining it at either side, meeting at the altar. On one end of one tine was Carlos's room; on the other was Cecil's. They stepped out at the same time, a parent (or close approximation) on each arm. Josie and John had helped to raise Cecil after the Incident with the mirror, and here they were, leading him down one path while Carlos's parents brought him down the other. The music spun wildly like the lights above the Arby's, like Carlos's head, and it was so beautiful that for a moment he just had to close his eyes, breathe deep, and put one foot in front of the other.

There he was, beautiful and delicately resplendent, tattooed blossoms shining beautifully on his arms, his forehead neatly marked with his power, pearls glowing in the long black braid he wore. He shone with golden thread and a smile brighter than the sun.

He fell in love all over again. There was no way in this world that he could look at that being who loved him so absolutely and feel so little.

The escorts kissed each man on the forehead before taking their seats in the front row. Ana and Maria stood on either side of the altar, a white silk cord wrapped around Ana's hand.

The officiant, a woman Carlos had only seen in town on occasion, welcomed the guests and explained some of the rites. Everything blurred a little, crystallizing only around Cecil's face. There was _el lazo_ , that slender ring of cord knotted in the middle and draped across the grooms' shoulders. There was the brief exchange of coins, where each man took a round gold coin ("Cecil, why do you have dubloons?") and placed it in the palm of the other. There was the etching of runes that Carlos could barely remember into a round, flat piece of sandstone with their daggers. There were the vows, and he barely knew which words were tumbling from his mouth, but they were the ones he had written months ago, the ones that only just contained all of the things he felt for Cecil. Cecil's vows were very likely moving and beautiful and kind, but god, he'd have to rely on the video. Everything sped and whirled around him, and it was perfect.

The officiant proclaimed them wed, with the smiling order to kiss and the removal of the cord. And that was that. They'd done the paperwork with the city, they'd undergone the ceremony, half of the guests were crying, and they were Dr. and Mr. Carlos and Cecil Palmer-Mendoza, and how on earth had he gotten so lucky?

It was extraordinary, and it was theirs.

* * *

The party afterward, catered by Big Rico's Pizza and attended by a host of angels trumpeting and throwing confetti, was only marginally more memorable than the ceremony. He was distracted with thoughts of later, of Cecil's golden skin stretched out for him, of giggling and bumping noses and—

"Come dance with me, _tío_!" Josephine cried, running up to the pair at their table. Cecil was taking a slow sip of grape cider, grinning at Carlos like he'd just won the lottery. The lottery out in the rest of the world, though, not the one with the wolves.

"Sure thing, kid," Carlos said, getting to his feet. Josephine laughed and shook her head.

"Not you, silly! Uncle Cecil!"

Cecil blushed hot and purple beneath the gold. He smiled shakily, nervously, happily, and stood up. He held out a hand, which Josephine took and used to drag him out to the dance floor. It wasn't long before Mary, now thirteen, demanded a dance of Carlos. The floor was thick with people and laughter and chatter, with the family he had been born with and the family he had been given. Nearly everyone in the town was there, and they all beamed at Cecil and Carlos with so much open affection that even Magdalena was surprised. Carlos was Night Vale's now, as much as the town was his.

At the end of the night, the crowd formed two lines on either side of the building's exit and threw red confetti at the couple. They laughed and ducked the projectile decorations, getting into Carlos's Prius and peeling out. The road rang with the sound of cheers as the little silver hybrid, painted with the words _Just Married_ across the back window, hummed through the town and to their home.

They very nearly fell through the door, leaving a trail of fine clothing (and a pair of furry pants) on the way to the bedroom, both heady with the knowledge that the next morning would be the first where they would wake up as a married couple.

Carlos shone incandescent.

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, as always.  
> The song that plays during the ceremony, and also in my head as I think about the ceremony, is ["Grown Ocean" by Fleet Foxes](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgv6dKV03dA).  
> I've mostly settled on a headcanon for Cecil (finally), and he looks a lot like [Goddess-in-Green's Cecil](http://goddess-in-green.tumblr.com/tagged/cecil-palmer). Look at how pretty that fool is. Ugh. Except imagine mine with a different sort of third eye (described in "We Are Home") and pretty floral tattoos. He is an amalgamation of a lot of things.  
> What else...?  
> Some aspects of the wedding ceremony are loosely based on Mexican Catholic wedding traditions, including the lasso and the thirteen gold coins. There's some information [here](http://www.weddingdetails.com/lore-tradition/mexico/). I am neither Catholic nor Mexican, so my knowledge is all Google, basically. That's one good reason as to why those bits were so loose. (Also, Carlos was raised Catholic but he's not religious, so...)  
> Anything else? My [tumblr](http://litbythestars.tumblr.com/)? That's a lot of links. You're welcome?


End file.
